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Notes from the workshop

Tutorials, material deep-dives, project write-ups and behind-the-scenes notes from our Oxfordshire print farm — written by the people running the machines.

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Latest·Industry

3D printing for Oxford and Oxfordshire businesses: what local firms order, and how we work with them

What Oxfordshire's spin-outs, motorsport suppliers and workshops actually order from a 3D printing service fifteen miles up the road, where being local genuinely helps, and when the university workshop is the better answer.

READ →15 Sept 2026
An open cardboard postal box with a printed blue bracket propped against its sideIndustry

"3D printing near me": how a mail-order 3D printing service actually works

What people are really asking when they search for 3D printing near them, and why a workshop ninety miles away that dispatches in 24 hours usually beats one down the road.

14 Sept 2026
A soft blue rubber seal looped into a curve, one end squashed flat beneath a rigid blockTutorial

Flexible parts that work: TPU and silicone for gaskets, grips and dampers

How we print flexible parts in TPU and true Silicone 40A: choosing between them, designing gaskets, grips and dampers that work, and the limits we're honest about.

8 Sept 2026
A caravan window stay with hinged arms and a freshly printed end capIndustry

Caravan & motorhome replacement parts: printing the plastics you can't buy

Discontinued catches, stays, winders and brackets don't have to write off a good caravan. How we reverse engineer and reprint obsolete caravan and motorhome plastics in UV-stable materials.

26 Aug 2026
A printed massing model of three stepped buildings on a rectangular baseboardIndustry

Architectural models and scale prints for practices

Massing, planning and detail models printed from the geometry you already have. Which process suits which scale, how to prepare a Revit or Rhino file, and where printing isn't the answer.

26 Aug 2026
A closed padlock standing in front of a tightly rolled technical drawingIndustry

Confidential projects: NDAs, IP and repeatability

How we handle commercially sensitive work: whose NDA we sign, who owns the CAD, what happens to your files, and how we make part 200 the same as part one.

25 Aug 2026
The same angle bracket printed twice — one banded with visible print layers, one smooth and glossyTutorial

FDM vs SLA for engineering parts: a decision guide

How to choose between FDM and SLA resin printing for functional parts: materials, detail, cost and size compared, with a plain decision table and a worked example.

18 Aug 2026
A machined flanged spacer with a fine inspection mesh overlaid on half its surfaceTutorial

3D inspection and dimensional checking with scanning

How scan-based inspection works: deviation maps against CAD, dimensional checks on the features that matter, supplier and first-article verification — and an honest view of when you need a metrology lab instead.

11 Aug 2026
A printed wing-mirror housing on its swept stalk, the mirror aperture left emptyIndustry

Automotive and motorsport 3D printing: brackets, jigs, trim and spares

Where 3D printing actually earns its place on a vehicle: mounting brackets, workshop jigs, trim and housings, and spares nobody sells any more. Materials, costs and honest limits.

4 Aug 2026
A build plate seen from above, tiled with a dozen identical printed hose clipsTutorial

Low-volume batch production: 10–500 parts without tooling

How 3D-printed batch production fills the gap between one-offs and injection moulding: the economics of 10–500 parts without tooling, a worked example, material choices, and where moulding still wins.

28 Jul 2026
A filament spool standing beside its storage rack, one pigeonhole left emptyBehind the Scenes

The filament shuffle, and what CPUs taught us about it

Swapping spools felt constant, so we measured it: thirteen changeovers a week. It turns out a material feeder is a cache, and caches have a known optimal answer.

26 Jul 2026
A very large printed ducting elbow dwarfing a single small bracket at its footBehind the Scenes

Why our biggest printer stopped taking small jobs

We measured how work actually flowed through our print farm, found the big machine doing jobs any printer could do, and taught the scheduler some queueing theory.

26 Jul 2026
Form 4Behind the Scenes

Why we bought a Formlabs Form 4

Resin printing has always promised the best parts and the worst ownership experience. We've replaced our consumer resin machine with a Formlabs Form 4: here's what that changes for your parts.

24 Jul 2026
A two-pan beam balance weighing a small printed part against a stack of weightsTutorial

What a 3D printing quote actually depends on (and how to brief a job)

A print quote isn't a guess, it's material, machine time and a few modifiers. Here's what drives the number, and how to brief a job so it comes back right first time.

21 Jul 2026
Filament SpoolTutorial

Choosing a material for functional parts: load, heat and chemical resistance

PLA is fine for checking a part fits. It's the wrong choice for anything that gets hot, weathered or loaded. How we pick material by what the part actually has to survive.

14 Jul 2026
X2DAnnouncement

A second nozzle in the workshop: what the Bambu Lab X2D changes for your parts

We've added a dual-nozzle printer to the workshop. A dedicated support nozzle and clean multi-material printing mean better finishes, genuine two-material parts and less waste — with the same turnaround you're used to.

13 Jul 2026
Engineer's calipers measuring across the boss of a worn cast bearing blockTutorial

Reverse engineering a part with no drawings: how scan-to-CAD-to-print works

The part has failed, the maker is long gone, and there are no drawings. Here's how we rebuild a working replacement from the broken original.

8 Jul 2026
A new part for an old machineCase Study

The machine outlives the catalogue

A 1997 Honda ST1100's mirror cowls are unobtainable; the bike outlived its own parts supply. On repair culture, pace layers, and what 3D printing changes for orphaned machines.

4 Jul 2026
A printed part whose coarse mesh facets dissolve away into clean solid surfaceTutorial

3D CAD services explained: from sketch or scan to print-ready model

What a 3D CAD service actually does: turning a sketch, a physical part or a rough file into a clean, parametric, print-ready model — and what "print-ready" really means.

3 Jul 2026
A printed replacement stepped cone pulley with three belt steps and a square boreIndustry

Recreating obsolete and legacy spare parts in 2026

The part you need stopped being made years ago and the manufacturer has gone. Here's how 3D printing recreates obsolete and legacy spares — one part or a batch — without tooling.

28 Jun 2026
An injection-moulding sprue and runner tree beside a single printed copy of the same partIndustry

Rapid prototyping vs injection moulding: when 3D printing wins on cost

Injection moulding is cheaper per part — eventually. Here's where the crossover sits, and why low-volume work almost always belongs on a 3D printer.

24 Jun 2026